Balpa has written to the government to ask for a winter “resilience fund” to provide funding for cash-strapped airlines during the next few months, after the reaction to the emergence of the new Covid-19 variant “shattered” consumer confidence.

The union is also pleading for all mandatory Covid tests for travellers to be provided free by the NHS and not by “cowboy” private testing companies.

While Balpa added that any additional restrictions “must be only data-led, ensuring effective border controls do their job whilst allowing safe travel to resume”.

General secretary Martin Chalk said: “Pilots, by their very nature, are safety-conscious and understand the desire to protect public health.

“But the measures and restrictions put in place by the government must be proportionate to risk, based on data and not unnecessarily penalise travellers including families reuniting for Christmas and the New Year. 

“It is vital the government helps rebuild public confidence and supports aviation by removing the barriers, such as costly private testing, that are putting people off travelling.

“Support to aviation dried up at the end of summer, yet the principle of supporting loss-making industries while government restrictions prevent business as usual, applies as much now as it ever did.”

Chalk added that airlines needed winter support to “compete with the rest of the world come summer 2022”.